


A Pale Horse

by pineapple_utopia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Disease, Famine - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Second Person, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25595584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineapple_utopia/pseuds/pineapple_utopia
Summary: Death is inevitable, but there's nothing wrong about that. It's foolish to assign inherent morality to something that simply is.
Kudos: 2





	A Pale Horse

To breathe is painful. With every breath in is a shot of agony through your ribs and every breath out is a reminder of every other ache in your body. You’re not sure where your legs are- they don’t feel numb. They don’t feel like anything.

Slowly, you blink. 

The air is acrid and smokey, bringing a sting to your eyes. Everywhere you look is desecrated with bodies. Dust drifts across the filthy land, and somewhere, you hear the buzz of flies. Your hearing keeps fading in and out, making you uncertain if you’re actually hearing anything at all, or just imagining it. The pain keeps nagging at you, making any thought hazy. You try to sit up, but cry out and slump back against the pile of… something behind you. There’s a difficulty with recalling, but you’re sure those are bodies too. It’s hard to see the ground with all of them in the way. 

When did everything go so wrong? You can’t be sure. 

You do remember when everyone’s food started going bad. 

There was some inexplicable disease riddling across everything that came from a garden, and whatever that came out healthy disappeared the moment it went into storage. People claimed they saw movement in their fields, heard something rattling around the trucks that were supposed to deliver the crops to other places. No amount of traps, cameras, watchmen, or any action seemed to stop this. Farmers would end up with broken equipment and wrecked barns. Traps would be found set off, but always empty. Watchmen would be left dead, gruesome marks in them. The food being sick meant that soon people were too. It’s not as if they had any alternatives. The sick seemed to come from everywhere. The land, the water, the food, and even the air. People gained fevers, aches, coughs, bile, shivers, boils, rashes, and no matter what the doctors did it only got worse. No one could do anything without dropping dead. There was a quickly growing mob of hungry, dying, sick people who could do nothing but blame each other and argue. 

That’s about when people started seeing a dark figure wandering around. They would say there was no hope and call it a sign of their demise. No one could fight the famine, not with the disease wiping them all out. The only thing to fight was each other. But you know there were people who tried to quell the fighting despite all the tension, because you were one of them.

Things starting getting even worse when you heard about the same thing happening everywhere else. At some point you stopped hearing news, likely because at least half your town was dead, and the other half infected, but you knew if everyone else in the world hadn’t died already, they would soon. You couldn’t understand how this all happened. It was all so sudden, so fast, so terrible. Your pleads for everyone to calm down and try to think rationally did nothing to stop your small town from ripping each other to pieces. You’re not totally sure if any of this could have been stopped. No matter what anyone tried to do. There’s nothing left to your home but rubble and corpses.

Now you’re here, lying on the ground, unsure of your current amount of limbs. You hear something tear, something like fabric. The noise feels out of place in the dreadful quiet, and you’re ready to brush it off as a stressed hallucination. But there’s the faint awareness of movement, and a shadow falls over you. You struggle to look up, head throbbing. In front of you, there is a tall figure. Darkness wraps around their shoulders and cascades down in the form of a loose cloak, skeletal wings cutting through the gray of the sky. A large scythe is held in one of their thin hands. Intricate patterns are in both it’s blade and handles, but the craftsmanship is lost in the sea of panic you feel crashing into you. They look at you with a face fashioned after a skull.

**“Hello,”** says Death.

“No,” You rasp. “Please-”   
  


**“It’s mostly ornamental,”** They assure you.  **“But it’s adequate for actual farming.”**

You sit up, putting weight on one arm. A feeling like white-hot metal shoots up and digs at your shoulder, but you ignore it to try to move backward despite the pain demanding you stop. Death only watches you, letting you exhaust yourself with the effort of running. You collapse not more than a foot away. There is a searing heat filling you.

“P-p-please- I just want to live,” You say. Death regards you carefully, their cloak drifting in the slight breeze. 

**“Why?”** They ask.

“Wh- what?” Confused, you try to focus on them, but your vision slips. Your head feels sluggish, and as if it’s been stuffed full of wool. Thinking feels like a battle within itself. Sweat drips down your forehead in rivets, and yet you shiver.

**“Why do you want to live?”** This question comes gently. There is no malice, no laughter, no taunting. Only polite curiosity. 

“I- I don’t want to die. It’s- it’s t-terrible-”   
  


**“Death?”** They ask, calm as can be.

“Y-yes.”   
  


**“I hope you know I am not meant to be a cruel thing. Circumstance and perspective may make me so, but I am a necessity.”** You try to respond, but only a wet croak comes out. Blood bubbles across your lip. Death watches the movement of your chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. Eventually, they kneel down and extend a thin, metallic hand towards you. 

**“I imagine this has all been a rather traumatic experience to go through. This situation tends to occur every time we arrive somewhere new. My friends are not kind.”**

“Wh- w-what are y-y-” A shudder runs through you.

**“Offering something,”** They say.  **“You still have a few hours ahead of you, and I don’t imagine they’ll be very enjoyable.”**

“H-how d-” You break into an uncontrollable cough. It makes your already raw throat sear and jostles every broken bit.  What it is they’re offering is obvious. Your panic tells you to refuse, to take what time you have left, assuming they’re even telling the truth. You know no one is coming. There’s no one left who could. Heaving, you try to gasp for breath but find that familiar pain instead. When was the last time you felt relief? Any ease at all? What about any kind of joy? A moment feels like an eternity. Any longer than that feels impossible.  With a clumsy, trembling motion, your hand falls into theirs. Death’s hand is cold but grasps firmly around yours in a way that is not uncomforting. The change is not abrupt, but it comes swiftly. A comforting chill runs through your fingers and up into the rest of your body, spreading to brush away the sickly heat. It causes your pain to melt away, and the cloud in your head clears. All the tension held tight in your muscles is released, granting you a relaxation you haven’t felt in so long. You feel impossibly light, as if you’re about to drift away. 

**“Sleep well,”** Death says.    
  
  


  
  



End file.
